“You know when you control the information, you help control the destiny.”
Republican Del. Leo Wardrup of Virginia Beach is a savvy politician, as his comments to reporters earlier this year suggest. But those words take on a more ominous ring when applied to Wardrup’s efforts to control information compiled by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.
Wardrup led a mini-revolt against a JLARC report describing various scenarios — with price tags ranging from $28 million to $248 million — to upgrade technology services and training in Virginia’s public schools.
A while back, he also persuaded JLARC to drop a slide from a presentation on K-12 education funding. The table suggested that the Republican-led legislature has invested less new money in public education than some claim.
His most recent complaint, Wardrup said, is that the technology report “suggests we have a shortage of spending on technology in K through 12 . . . I simply do not agree with that, nor do I agree that some of the needs expressed in there are genuine needs.”
Wardrup is entitled to his opinion.
But at a time of deep political division over public funding for education and other state services, it’s critical that the legislature’s highly respected watchdog agency maintain its independence.
House Republicans, whose caucus Wardrup (has chaired), are sensitive to charges that their anti-tax, limited-government philosophy is harming public institutions. Their rebuttal must not extend to silencing analysts with an inconvenient message.
Fortunately, that did not occur with the JLARC report. Members considered both rejecting the document and refusing to receive it, a procedural step that probably would have kept the document secret. In the end commission members agreed to a better solution — receiving the report and allowing it to be posted on JLARC’s Web site, but without formal endorsement.
Crippling the messenger because someone dislikes the message would be a poor way of shaping Virginia’s destiny.